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Rufus Wilmot Griswold
| birthplace = Benson, Vermont, United States | deathdate = August | deathplace = New York City, New York, United States | occupation = Editor, literary critic, writer | nationality = American | signature = RGriswold-signature.jpg }} Rufus Wilmot Griswold (February 13, 1812 - August 27, 1857) was an American poet, anthologist, editor, and critic. Life Overview Born in Vermont, Griswold left home when he was 15. He worked as a journalist, editor, and critic in Philadelphia, New York City, and elsewhere. He built up a strong literary reputation, in part due to his 1842 collection The Poets and Poetry of America. This anthology, the most comprehensive of its time, included what he deemed the best examples of American poetry. He produced revised versions and similar anthologies for the remainder of his life, although many of the poets he promoted have since faded into obscurity. Many writers hoped to have their work included in one of these editions, although they commented harshly on Griswold's abrasive character. Griswold was married three times: his first wife died young, his second marriage ended in a public and controversial divorce, and his third wife left him after the previous divorce was almost repealed. Edgar Allan Poe, whose poetry had been included in Griswold's anthology, published a critical response that questioned which poets were included. This began a rivalry which grew when Griswold succeeded Poe as editor of Graham's Magazine at a higher salary than Poe's. Later, the two competed for the attention of poet Frances Sargent Osgood. They never reconciled their differences and, after Poe's mysterious death in 1849, Griswold wrote an unsympathetic obituary. Claiming to be Poe's chosen literary executor, he began a campaign to harm Poe's reputation that lasted until his own death 8 years later. Griswold considered himself an expert in American poetry and was an early proponent of its inclusion on the school curriculum. His primary contribution was the creation of his anthology, the first one compiled in the United States. He also supported the introduction of copyright legislation, speaking to Congress on behalf of the publishing industry, although he was not above pirating other people's work. A fellow editor remarked, "even while haranguing the loudest, he is purloining the fastest".Sidney P. Moss. (1969). Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. (Southern Illinois University Press), 80–81 Youth Griswold was born on February 13, 1812,Joy Bayless (1943). Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor. (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press), 5 in Benson (near Rutland), Vermont,Kenneth Silverman, Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and never-ending remembrance. New York: Harper-Perennial, 1991, 212. Print. and raised a strict CalvinistJeffrey Meyers, Edgar Allan Poe: His life and legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press, 1992, 125. Print. in the hamlet of Benson. He was the twelfth of 14 children and his father was a farmer and shoemaker. In 1822, the family sold the Benson farm and moved to nearby Hubbardton.Bayless, 5–6 As a child, Griswold was complex, unpredictable, and reckless.Bayless, 7 He left home when he was 15, calling himself a "solitary soul, wandering through the world, a homeless, joyless outcast."Sandra Tomc. "Poe and His Circle." Collected in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Kevin J. Hayes, ed. (Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521797276), 26 Griswold moved to Albany, New York to live with a 22-year-old flute-playing journalist named George C. Foster, a writer best known for his work New-York by Gas-Light. Griswold lived with Foster until he was 17, and the two may have had a romantic relationship. When Griswold moved away, Foster wrote to him begging him to return, signing his letter "come to me if you love me."Bayless, 10 Griswold attempted to enroll at the Rensselaer School in 1830, but was not allowed to take any classes after he was caught attempting to play a prank on a professor.Bayless, 8 Early career and first marriage After a brief spell as a printer's apprentice, Griswold moved to Syracuse where, with some friends, he started a newspaper called The Porcupine. This publication purposefully targeted locals for what was later remembered as merely malicious critique.Bayless, 12–13 He moved to New York City in 1836. In March of that year was introduced to 19-year-old Caroline Searles, whom he later married.Bayless, 15 He was employed as an editor for various publications in the New York area. In October, he considered running for office as a Whig but did not receive the party's support.Bayless, 17–18 In 1837 he was licensed as a Baptist clergyman, although he never had a permanent congregation. Griswold married Caroline on August 12, 1837,Bayless, 20 and the couple had two daughters. Following the birth of their second daughter, Griswold left his family behind in New York and moved to Philadelphia.Silverman, 213 His departure on November 27, 1840,Arthur Hobson Quinn (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801857309), 350 was by all accounts abrupt, leaving his job with Horace Greeley's New York Tribune, and his library of several thousand volumes. He joined the staff of Philadelphia's Daily Standard and began to build his reputation as a literary critic, becoming known for his savagery and vindictiveness. On November 6, 1842, Griswold visited his wife in New York after she had given birth to their third child, a son. Three days later, after returning to Philadelphia, he was informed that both she and the infant had died. Deeply shocked, Griswold traveled by train alongside her coffin, refusing to leave her side for 30 hours. When fellow passengers urged him to try to sleep, he answered by kissing her dead lips and embracing her, his two children crying next to him.Bayless, 64 He refused to leave the cemetery after her funeral, even after the other mourners had left, until forced to do so by a relative.Silverman, 217Bayless, 65 He wrote a long poem in blank verse dedicated to Caroline, "Five Days," which was printed in the New York Tribune on November 16, 1842.Bayless, 66 Griswold had difficulty believing she had died and often dreamed of their reunion. Forty days after her entombment, he entered her vault, cut off a lock of her hair, kissed her on the forehead and lips, and wept for several hours, staying by her side until a friend found him 30 hours later. Anthologist and critic In 1842, Griswold released his 476-page anthology of American poetry, The Poets and Poetry of America, which he dedicated to Washington Allston.Fred Lewis Pattee (1966). The First Century of American Literature: 1770–1870. (New York: Cooper Square Publishers), 279 Griswold's collection featured poems from over 80 authors,Dawn B. Sova (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. (New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 081604161X), 197 including 17 by Lydia Sigourney (1781-1865), 3 by Edgar Allan Poe, and 45 by Charles Fenno Hoffman. Hoffman, a close friend, was allotted twice as much space as any other author.Pattee, 494 Griswold went on to oversee many other anthologies, including Biographical Annual, which collected memoirs of "eminent persons recently deceased," Gems from American Female Poets, Prose Writers of America, and Female Poets of America (1848).Quinn, 350–351 Prose Writers of America, published in 1847, was prepared specifically to compete with a similar anthology by Cornelius Mathews and Evert Augustus Duyckinck.Perry Miller (1956). The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville. (New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, Inc.), 169 In preparing his anthologies, Griswold would write to the living authors whose work he was including to ask their suggestions on which poems to include, as well as to gather information for a biographical sketch.Pattee, 391 In 1843 Griswold founded ''The Opal'', an annual gift book that collected essays, stories, and poetry. Nathaniel Parker Willis edited its first edition, which was released in the fall of 1844.Bayless, 83 For a time, Griswold was editor of the Saturday Evening Post''Ellis Paxson Oberholtzer. ''The Literary History of Philadelphia. (Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., 1906), 298. and also published a collection of his own original poetry, The Cypress Wreath (1844). His poems, with titles such as "The Happy Hour of Death," "On the Death of a Young Girl," and "The Slumber of Death," emphasized mortality and mourning.J. Gerald Kennedy. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987), 66–67. ISBN 0300037732. Another collection of his poetry, Christian Ballads and Other Poems, was published in 1844, and his nonfiction book, The Republican Court or, American Society in the Days of Washington, was published in 1854.Bayless, 234 The book is meant to cover events during the presidency of George Washington, though it mixes historical fact with apocryphal legend until one is indistinguishable from the other.William Alfred Bryan. George Washington in American Literature 1775–1865. (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 103. During this period, Griswold occasionally offered his services at the pulpit delivering sermonsBayless, 93 and he may have received an honorary doctorate from Shurtleff College, a Baptist institution in Illinois, leading to his nickname the "Reverend Dr. Griswold."No records from the college authenticating this claim exist. Bayless, 274 Second marriage On August 20, 1845, Griswold married Charlotte Myers, a Jewish woman;Bayless, 107 she was 42 and he was 29.Silverman, 342 Griswold had been pressured into the marriage by the woman's aunts, despite his concern about their difference in religious beliefs. This difference was strong enough that one of Griswold's friends referred to his wife only as "the little Jewess."Silverman, 354 On their wedding night, he discovered that she was, according to Griswold biographer Joy Bayless, "through some physical misfortune, incapable of being a wife"Bayless, 108 or, as Poe biographer Kenneth Silverman explains, incapable of having sex. Griswold considered the marriage void and no more valid "than there would have been had the ceremony taken place between parties of the same sex, or where the sex of one was doubtful or ambiguous." Still, the couple moved together to Charleston, South Carolina, Charlotte's home town, and lived under the same roof, albeit sleeping in separate rooms. Neither of the two was happy with the situation, and at the end of April 1846 she had a lawyer write up a contract "to separate, altogether and forever, ... which would in effect be a divorce."Bayless, 111 The contract forbade Griswold from re-marrying and paid him $1,000 for expenses in exchange for his daughter Caroline staying with the Myers family.Bayless, 111–112 After this separation, Griswold immediately moved back to Philadelphia. Move to New York City A few years later, Griswold moved back to New York City, leaving his younger daughter in the care of the Myers family and his elder daughter, Emily, with relatives on her mother's side. He had by now earned the nickname "Grand Turk," and in the summer of 1847 made plans to edit an anthology of poetry by American women.Bayless, 143 He believed that women were incapable of the same kind of "intellectual" poetry as men and believed they needed to be treated differently. "The conditions of aesthetic ability in the two sexes are probably distinct, or even opposite," he wrote in his introduction.Emily Stipes Watts. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. (Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1977), 70–71. The selections he chose for The Female Poets of America were not necessarily the greatest examples of poetry but instead were chosen because they emphasized traditional morality and values.Watts, 73. That same year, Griswold began working on what he considered "the maximum opus of his life," an extensive biographical dictionary. Although he worked on it for several years and even advertised for it, it was never produced.Bayless 201 He also helped Elizabeth F. Ellet publish her book Women of the American Revolution, and was angered when she did not acknowledge his assistance in the book.Bayless, 143–144 In July 1848, he visited poet Sarah Helen Whitman in Providence, Rhode Island, although he had been suffering with vertigo and exhaustion, rarely leaving his apartment at New York University, and was unable to write without taking opium. In autumn of that year, he had an epileptic fit, the first of many he would suffer for the remainder of his life. One fit caused him to fall out of a ferry in Brooklyn and nearly drown.Silverman, 441 He wrote to publisher James Thomas Fields: "I am in a terrible condition, physically and mentally. I do not know what the end will be … I am exhausted—betwixt life and death—and heaven and hell." In 1849, he was further troubled when Charles Fenno Hoffman, with whom he had become good friends, was committed to an insane asylum.Bayless, 149 He continued editing and contributing literary criticism for various publications, both full-time and freelance, including 22 months from July 1, 1850, to April 1, 1852, with The International Magazine.''Bayless, 205 There, he worked with contributors including Elizabeth Oakes Smith, Mary E. Hewitt and John R. Thompson.Bayless, 206–207 In the November 10, 1855, issue of ''The Criterion, Griswold reviewed Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass, denouncing the work as "a mass of stupid filth." He also suggested, in Latin, that Whitman was homosexual, referring to "that horrible sin not to be mentioned among Christians." Whitman chose to include the review in a later edition of Leaves of Grass, possibly to show how he was distancing himself from the conventional.Loving, 184–185 Griswold was one of the first in the nineteenth century to suggest Whitman's homosexuality in print.Loving, 202 Divorce and third marriage After a brief flirtation with poet Alice Cary, Griswold pursued a relationship with Harriet McCrillis. He originally did not want to divorce Charlotte Myers because he "dreaded the publicity" and because of her love for his daughter.Bayless, 212 He applied for divorce at the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia on March 25, 1852.Bayless, 217 Elizabeth Ellet and Ann S. Stephens wrote to Myers urging her not to grant the divorce, and to McCrillis not to marry him.Bayless, 220 To convince Myers to agree to the divorce, Griswold allowed her to keep his daughter Caroline if she signed a statement that she had deserted him.Bayless, 221 She agreed and the divorce was made official December 18; he likely never saw Myers or his daughter again.Bayless, 222 McCrillis and Griswold were married shortly thereafter on December 26, 1852, and settled at 196 West Twenty-third Street in New York.Bayless, 223 Their son, William, was born on October 9, 1853.Bayless, 226 Ellet and Stephens continued writing to Griswold's ex-wife, urging her to have the divorce repealed. Myers was finally convinced and filed in Philadelphia on September 23, 1853. The court, however, had lost records of the divorce and had to delay the appeal.Bayless, 227 Adding to Griswold's troubles, that fall, a gas leak in his home caused an explosion and a fire. He was severely burned, losing his eyelashes, eyebrows, and seven of his finger nails. That same year, his 15-year-old daughter, Emily, nearly died in Connecticut. A train she was riding on had fallen off a drawbridge into a river. When Griswold arrived he saw 49 corpses in a make-shift morgue. Emily had been pronounced dead when pinned underwater but a doctor was able to revive her. On February 24, 1856, the divorce appeal went to court, with Ellet and Stephens providing lengthy testimony against Griswold's character. Neither Griswold nor Myers attended and the appeal was dismissed. Embarrassed by the ordeal, McCrillis left Griswold in New York and moved in with family in Bangor, Maine.Bayless, 251 Death Griswold died of tuberculosis in New York City on August 27, 1857.Bayless, 253 Sarah Anna Lewis, a friend and writer, suggested that the interference of Elizabeth Ellet had exacerbated Griswold's condition and that she "goaded Griswold to his death."Mary E. Phillips. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Volume II. (Chicago: The John C. Winston Co., 1926), 1575 At the time of his death, the sole decorations found in his room were portraits of himself, Frances Osgood, and Poe.Shawn James Rosenheim. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997), 123. A friend, Charles Godfrey Leland, found in Griswold's desk several documents attacking a number of authors which Griswold was preparing for publication. Leland decided to burn them.Quinn, 692 Griswold's funeral was held on August 30. His pallbearers included Leland, Charles Frederick Briggs, George Henry Moore, and Richard Henry Stoddard. His remains were left for 8 years in the receiving tomb of Green-Wood Cemetery before they were buried on July 12, 1865 without a headstone.Bayless, 255 Although his library of several thousand volumes was auctioned off, raising over $3,000 to be put towards a monument, one was never commissioned. Relationship with Poe of Edgar Allan Poe at 39, a year before his death]] Griswold first met Edgar Allan Poe in Philadelphia in May of 1841 while working for the Daily Standard.''Silverman, 211 At the outset, their relationship was cordial, at least superficially. In a letter dated March 29, 1841, Poe sent Griswold several poems for ''The Poets and Poetry of America anthology, writing that he would be proud to see "one or two of them in the book". Griswold included three of these poems: "Coliseum," "The Haunted Palace," and "The Sleeper". In November of that year Poe, who had previously praised Griswold in his "Autography" series as "a gentleman of fine taste and sound judgment," wrote a critical review of the anthology, on Griswold's behalf. Griswold paid Poe for the review and used his influence to have it published in a Boston periodical. The review was generally favorable, although Poe questioned the inclusion of certain authors and the omission of others.Silverman, 215–216 Poe also said that Griswold "unduly favored" New England writers.Glen A. Omans, "Poe and Washington Allston: Visionary Kin," collected in Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. (Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1990. ISBN 0961644923), 24. Griswold had expected more praise; and Poe privately told others he was not particularly impressed by the book,Silverman, 216 even calling it "a most outrageous humbug" in a letter to a friend.Quinn, 352 In another letter, this time to fellow writer Frederick W. Thomas, Poe suggested that Griswold's promise to help get the review published was actually a bribe for a favorable review, knowing Poe needed the money.Quinn, 353 Making the relationship even more strained, only months later, Griswold was hired by George Rex Graham to take up Poe's former position as editor of Graham's Magazine. Griswold, however, was paid more and given more editorial control of the magazine than Poe had received. Shortly after, Poe began giving a series of lectures called "The Poets and Poetry of America," the first of which was given in Philadelphia on November 25, 1843. Poe openly attacked Griswold in front of his large audience and continued to do so in similar lectures.Bayless, 75–76 Graham said that during these lectures, Poe "gave Mr. Griswold some raps over the knuckles of force sufficient to be remembered."Silverman, 218 In a letter dated January 16, 1845, Poe tried to reconcile with Griswold, promising him that his lecture now omitted all that Griswold found objectionable.Killis Campbell. "The Poe-Griswold Controversy," The Mind of Poe and Other Studies. (New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1962), 67. Another source of animosity between the two men was their competition for the attention of the poet Frances Sargent Osgood in the mid to late 1840s.Meyers, 209 While both she and Poe were still married to their respective spouses,Meyers, 174 the two carried on a public flirtation that resulted in much gossip among the literati. Griswold, who was smitten by Osgood, escorted her to literary salons and became her staunchest defender. "She is in all things the most admirable woman I ever knew," he wrote to publisher James T. Fields in 1848.Bayless, 144 Osgood responded by dedicating a collection of her poetry to Griswold, "as a souvenir of admiration for his genius, of regard for his generous character, and of gratitude for his valuable literary counsels." "Ludwig" obituary After Poe's death, Griswold prepared an obituary signed with the pseudonym "Ludwig." First printed in the October 9, 1849, issue of the New York Tribune, it was soon republished many times.Sova, 142 Here he asserted that "few will be grieved" by Poe's death as he had few friends. He claimed that Poe often wandered the streets, either in "madness or melancholy," mumbling and cursing to himself, was easily irritated, was envious of others, and that he "regarded society as composed of villains." Poe's drive to succeed, Griswold wrote, was because he sought "the right to despise a world which galled his self-conceit." Much of this characterization of Poe was copied almost verbatim from that of the fictitious Francis Vivian in The Caxtons published in 1849 by British author, Edward Bulwer-Lytton.Moss, 125 Griswold biographer Joy Bayless wrote that Griswold used a pseudonym not to conceal his relationship to the obituary but because it was his custom to never sign his newspaper and his magazine contributions.Bayless, 164 Nonetheless, Griswold's true identity was soon revealed. In a letter to Sarah Helen Whitman dated December 17, 1849, he admitted his role in writing Poe's death notice. "I was not his friend, nor was he mine," he wrote.Quinn, 651 Memoir Griswold claimed that "among the last requests of Mr. Poe" was that he become his literary executor "for the benefit of his family/"Bayless, 166–167 Griswold claimed that Poe's aunt and mother-in-law Maria Clemm said Poe had made such a statement on June 9, 1849, and that she herself released any claim to Poe's works. And indeed a document exists in which Clemm transfers power of attorney to Griswold, dated October 20, 1849, although there are no signed witnesses.Quinn, 754 Clemm, however, had no right to make such a decision; Poe's younger sister Rosalie was his closest next of kin.Silverman, 439 Although Griswold had acted as a literary agent for other American writers, it is unclear if Poe really appointed Griswold his executor (perhaps as part of his "Imp of the Perverse"Daniel Hoffman. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972), 14.), if it were a trick on Griswold's part, or a mistake on Maria Clemm's.Silverman, 439 It is also possible that Osgood persuaded Poe to name Griswold as his executor. In any case, Griswold, along with James Russell Lowell and Nathaniel Parker Willis, edited a posthumous collection of Poe's works published in 3 volumes starting in January 1850.Moss, 121 He did not share the profits of his edition with Poe's surviving relatives.Sova, 102 This edition included a biographical sketch titled "Memoir of the Author" which has become notorious for its inaccuracy. The "Memoir" depicts Poe as a madman, addicted to drugs and chronically drunk. Many elements were fabricated by Griswold using forged letters as evidence and it was denounced by those who knew Poe, including Sarah Helen Whitman, Charles Frederick Briggs, and George Rex Graham.Sova, 101 In March, Graham published a notice in his magazine accusing Griswold of betraying trust and taking revenge on the dead. "Mr. Griswold," he wrote, "has allowed old prejudices and old enmities to steal … into the coloring of his picture."Moss, 122 Thomas Holley Chivers wrote a book called New Life of Edgar Allan Poe which directly responded to Griswold's accusations.Beale, 25–28 He said that Griswold "is not only incompetent to edit any of Poe's works, but totally unconscious of the duties which he and every man who sets himself up as a Literary Executor, owe the dead".Beale, 70 Today Griswold's name is usually associated with Poe's as a character assassin,Frederick Frank and Anthony Magistrale. The Poe Encyclopedia. (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991), 149. although not all believe that Griswold deliberately intended to cause harm. Some of the information that Griswold asserted or implied was that Poe was expelled from the University of Virginia and that Poe had tried to seduce his guardian John Allan's second wife.Silverman, 440 Even so, Griswold's attempts only drew attention to Poe's work; readers were thrilled at the idea of reading the works of an "evil" man.Meyers, 263 Griswold's characterization of Poe and the false information he originated appeared consistently in Poe biographies for the next two decades. Recognition Griswold's anthology The Poets and Poetry of America was the most comprehensive of its kind to date. As critic Lewis Gaylord Clark said, it was expected Griswold's book would "become incorporated into the permanent undying literature of our age and nation." The anthology helped Griswold build up a considerable reputation throughout the 1840s and 1850sMeyers, 126 and its first edition went through three printings in only six months. His choice of authors, however, was occasionally questioned. A British editor reviewed the collection and concluded, "with two or three exceptions, there is not a poet of mark in the whole Union" and referred to the anthology as "the most conspicuous act of martyrdom yet committed in the service of the transatlantic muses."Bayless, 90 Even so, the book was popular and was even continued in several editions after Griswold's death by Richard Henry Stoddard. In more modern times, The Poets and Poetry of America has been nicknamed a "graveyard of poets" because its anthologized writers have since passed into obscurityBayless, 247 to become, as literary historian Fred Lewis Pattee wrote, "dead… beyond all resurrection." Pattee also called the book a "collection of poetic trash" and "voluminous worthlessness."Pattee, 363 Within the contemporary American literary scene Griswold became known as erratic, dogmatic, pretentious, and vindictive. Later anthologies such as Prose Writers of America and Female Poets of America helped him become known as a literary dictator, whose approval writers sought even while they feared his growing power.Quinn, 351 Even as they tried to impress him, however, several authors voiced their opinion on Griswold's character. Ann S. Stephens called him two-faced and "constitutionally incapable of speaking the truth".Silverman, 216–217 Even his friends knew him as a consummate liar and had a saying: "Is that a Griswold or a fact?"Miller, 204 Another friend once called him "one of the most irritable and vindictive men I ever met". Author Cornelius Mathews wrote in 1847 that Griswold fished for writers to exploit, warning "the poor little innocent fishes" to avoid his "Griswold Hook".Miller, 211 A review of one of Griswold's anthologies, published anonymously in the Philadelphia Saturday Museum on January 28, 1843, but believed to have been written by Poe,Quinn, 354 asked: "What will be Griswold's fate? Forgotten, save only by those whom he has injured and insulted, he will sink into oblivion, without leaving a landmark to tell that he once existed; or if he is spoken of hereafter, he will be quoted as the unfaithful servant who abused his trust."James Harrison, (ed.), The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. (New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902, vol XVII), 220–243 James Russell Lowell, who had privately called Griswold "an ass and, what's more, a knave", composed a verse on Griswold's temperament in his satire, A Fable for Critics: :But stay, here comes Tityrus Griswold, and leads on :The flocks whom he first plucks alive, and then feeds on— :A loud-cackling swarm, in whose feathers warm dressed, :He goes for as perfect a—swan as the rest.''Pattee, 389 Griswold was one of the earliest proponents of teaching schoolchildren American poetry in addition to English poetry. One of his anthologies, ''Readings in American Poetry for the Use of Schools, was created specifically for that purpose.Bayless, 79 His knowledge in American poetry was emphasized by his claim that he had read every American poem published before 1850—an estimated 500 volumes.Van Wyck Brooks. The Flowering of New England. (New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952), 520 "He has more literary patriotism, if the phrase be allowable … than any person we ever knew," wrote a contributor to Graham's. "Since the Pilgrims landed, no man or woman has written anything on any subject which has escaped his untiring research." Evert Augustus Duyckinck commented that "the thought a national literature seems to have entered and taken possession of Griswold's mind with the force of monomania".R.W.B. Lewis. The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955), 81. Poet Philip Pendleton Cooke questioned Griswold's sincerity, saying he "should have loved it… better than to say it".Edd Winfield Parks. Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics. (Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962), 303. By the 1850s, Griswold's literary nationalism had subsided somewhat, and he began following the more popular contemporary trend of reading literature from England, France, and Germany. He disassociated himself from the "absurd notion… that we are to create an entirely new literature". Publicly, Griswold supported the establishment of international copyright, although he himself often pirated entire works during his time as an editor, particularly with The Brother Jonathan. A contemporary editor said of him, "He takes advantage of a state of things which he declares to be 'immoral, unjust and wicked,' and even while haranguing the loudest, is purloining the fastest."Moss, 80–81 Even so, he was chosen to represent the publishing industry before Congress in the spring of 1844 to discuss the need for copyright law. Publications Non-fiction *''Washington and the Generals of the American Revolution'' (with William Gilmore Simms & Edward D. Ingraham). (2 volumes), Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1847; (1 volume), Philadelphia: Henry T. Coates, 1885. Volume I *''Napoleon and the Marshals of the Empire. (2 volumes), Philadelphia: Carey, 1848. *The Republican Court; or, American society in the days of Washington. New York: 1841; revised edition, New York & London: Appleton, 1851. *''The Cyclopedia of American Literature. New York: Baker & Godwin, 1856. Edited *''Gems from the American Poets: With brief biographical notices. Philadelphia: 1835; Philadelphia: H. Hooker, 1844. *The Biographical Annual: Containing memoirs of eminent persons recently deceased''. New York: Linen & Fennell, 1841. *''[http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/008689403 Gems from American Female Poets: With brief biographical notices. Philadelphia: H. Hooker, 1842. *The Poets and Poetry of America. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1842; **revised as ''The Poets and Poetry of America: To the middle of the nineteenth century. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1850. *''Readings in American Poetry: For the use of schools. New York: John C. Riker, 1843. *The Poets and Poetry of England: In the nineteenth century. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1844. *The Poetry of Flowers: Original and selected. Philadelphia: H. Hooker, 1844. *''The Poetry of Love. Boston: Isaac Tomkins, 1844. *''The Illustrated Book of Christian Ballads, and other poems. Philadelphia: Lindsay & Blakiston, 1844. *Winthrop Mackworth Praed, ''The Poetical Works: Now first collected. New York: Henry G. Langley, 1844; New York: Redfield, 1852. *''The Cypress Wreath: A Book of consolation for those who mourn. Boston: Gould, Kendall, & Lincoln, 1844. *''Curiosities of literature; and, The literary character illustrated (with Isaac Disraeli). New York: Appleton, 1844. *''The Poetry of the Sentiments. Philadelphia: John Locken, 1845. *The Poetry of the Affections. Philadelphia: John Locken, 1845; **also published as ''The Philopoena; or, Poetry of the affections. New York: Leavitt, 1850. *''The Poetry of the Passions''. Philadelphia: Uriah Hunt, 1846. *''The Prose Writers of America: With a survey of the history, condition, and prospects of American literature. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1847. *John Milton, ''The Prose Works: With a biographical introduction. (2 volumes), Philadelphia: John W. Moore, 1847. Volume I, Volume II *''The Female Poets of America. Philadelphia: Carey & Hart, 1849. *The Sacred Poets of England and America: For three centuries. New York: Appleton, 1849. *Gift-Leaves of American Poetry. New York: J.C. Riker, 1849. *''Gift of Affection: A souvenir for 1853. New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1853. *''The New National Song Book: Containing songs, odes and other poems on national subjects''. New York: Leavitt & Allen, 1856. *''The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe: With a memoir by Rufus Wilmot Griswold and notices of his life and genius''. (4 volumes), New York: Redfield, 1856-1857; London: Samson Low, 1847. . Letters *''Passages from the Correspondence, and other papers of Rufus W. Griswold'' (edited by W.M. Griswold). Cambridge, MA: W.M. Griswold, 1898. Except where noted, bibliographical information courtesy WorldCat.Search results = au:Rufus W. Griswold, WorldCat, OCLC Online Computer Library Center Inc. Web, May 9, 2015. See also * List of literary critics References *Bayless, Joy (1943). Rufus Wilmot Griswold: Poe's Literary Executor. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press. OCLC 36600924. *Brooks, Van Wyck. The Flowering of New England. New York: E. P. Dutton and Company, Inc., 1952. *Bryan, William Alfred. George Washington in American Literature 1775–1865. New York: Columbia University Press, 1952. *Bulwer-Lytton, Edward, Lord. The Caxtons. (1849) reprint London: George Routledge and Sons, 1878. *Campbell, Killis. "The Poe-Griswold Controversy," The Mind of Poe and Other Studies. New York: Russell & Russell, Inc., 1962. *Davis, Richard Beale, ed. (1952). Chivers' Life of Poe. New York: E. P. Dutton & Co., Inc. OCLC 49047341. *Frank, Frederick, and Anthony Magistrale. The Poe Encyclopedia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991. ISBN 0313277680. *Harrison, James, ed., The Complete Works of Edgar Allan Poe. New York: T. Y. Crowell, 1902, vol XVII. *Hoffman, Daniel. Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe Poe. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1972. ISBN 0807123218. *Kennedy, J. Gerald. Poe, Death, and the Life of Writing. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1987. ISBN 0300037732. *Lewis, R.W.B. The American Adam: Innocence, Tragedy, and Tradition in the Nineteenth Century. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1955. *Loving, Jerome (1999). Walt Whitman: The Song of Himself. University of California Press. ISBN 0520226879. *Meyers, Jeffrey (1992). Edgar Allan Poe: His Life and Legacy. New York: Cooper Square Press. ISBN 0815410387. *Miller, Perry (1956). The Raven and the Whale: The War of Words and Wits in the Era of Poe and Melville. New York: Harcourt, Brace, and World, Inc. OCLC 1165525 *Moss, Sidney P. (1969). Poe's Literary Battles: The Critic in the Context of His Literary Milieu. Southern Illinois University Press. OCLC 1161538. *Oberholtzer, Ellis Paxson. The Literary History of Philadelphia. Philadelphia: George W. Jacobs & Co., (1906). reprint ed. Kessinger Publishing, 2008. ISBN 978-0548998526. *Omans, Glen A. "Poe and Washington Allston: Visionary Kin," collected in Poe and His Times: The Artist and His Milieu, edited by Benjamin Franklin Fisher IV. Baltimore: The Edgar Allan Poe Society, 1990. ISBN 0961644923. *Parks, Edd Winfield. Ante-Bellum Southern Literary Critics. Athens, GA: University of Georgia Press, 1962. *Pattee, Fred Lewis (1966). The First Century of American Literature: 1770–1870. New York: Cooper Square Publishers. OCLC 269156 *Phillips, Mary E. Edgar Allan Poe: The Man. Volume II. Chicago: The John C. Winston Co., 1926. *Quinn, Arthur Hobson (1998). Edgar Allan Poe: A Critical Biography. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press. ISBN 0801857309. *Rosenheim, Shawn James. The Cryptographic Imagination: Secret Writing from Edgar Poe to the Internet. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1997. ISBN 9780801853326. *Silverman, Kenneth (1991). Edgar A. Poe: Mournful and Never-ending Remembrance. New York: Harper-Perennial. ISBN 0060923318. *Sova, Dawn B. (2001). Edgar Allan Poe: A to Z. New York: Checkmark Books. ISBN 081604161X. *Tomc, Sandra. "Poe and His Circle." Collected in The Cambridge Companion to Edgar Allan Poe, Kevin J. Hayes, ed. Cambridge University Press, 2002. ISBN 0521797276. *Watts, Emily Stipes. The Poetry of American Women from 1632 to 1945. Austin, TX: University of Texas Press, 1978. ISBN 0292765402. Notes External links ;About *Rufus Wilmot Griswold in the Encyclopædia Britannica *Rufus Wilmot Griswold in Appleton's Cyclopedia * "Edgar Allan Poe and Rufus Wilmot Griswold" at the Edgar Allan Poe Society online ;Etc. * The Works of the Late Edgar Allan Poe (Griswold Edition) at the Edgar Allan Poe Society online ---- This page uses content from the New World Encyclopedia. Category:1815 births Category:1857 deaths Category:People from Rutland County, Vermont Category:Deaths from tuberculosis Category:Edgar Allan Poe Category:American literary critics Category:Burials at Green-Wood Cemetery Category:New York Tribune personnel category:Art, music, literature, sports and leisure category:Writers and poets category:Biography Category:Poetry anthologists